A cold wind swept across the high plateaus of the central continent, dragging with it an ashen veil that dulled the light of dawn. The sky loomed heavy, thick with stormclouds and the weight of decisions yet to be made. In this bleak atmosphere, the great clans of the Crimson Sky Empire gathered under secrecy, called not by tradition, but by ambition and fear.
They convened at a secluded palace in the depths of the Peng family's mountain fortress. The Hall of the Obsidian Oath—silent, shielded by twelve layers of perception-breaking arrays—had not been opened in a century. Now it welcomed warlords and patriarchs whose ambitions once clashed in court but now found common ground in hatred for the one name they dared not speak aloud with respect:
Su Mengtian.
A crescent table of blackstone dominated the center, etched with the imperial lion motif from a time before the current dynasty. One by one, the clans arrived:
Feng Yitian entered first, robes embroidered with phoenix flames, his presence regal. Behind him, Feng Yao and Feng Zhonglan followed silently.
Tang Wushen, with the imposing strategist Tang Shuren beside him, brought an air of old soldiery and silent pride.
Jin Zeyan sat with his arms crossed, his daughter Jin Xuirong standing respectfully behind.
Shi Jainhong arrived with Shi Zhenhai and the icy-eyed elder Shi Leiming.
Peng Zhenyu, host of the meet, stood at the head, flanked by Peng Hongxuan and Peng Zhaoyang.
Long Aotian, though Mengtian's maternal uncle, sat stone-faced beside his father Long Tianhai.
Emperor Dongfang Tianyi did not attend himself, but the Crown Prince Dongfang Zihan appeared as his proxy, accompanied by the imperial guardian Dongfang Leicheng.
The last to enter was Bai Qingtian of the Celestial Snow Pavilion. A silence stretched unnaturally long as he approached his seat.
The chamber rumbled faintly, an omen of the tension inside.
Peng Zhenyu broke the quiet.
"We do this not as rebels, but as preservers of imperial order. The balance of power is crumbling. The Alliance grows too bold."
Feng Yitian nodded, his voice crisp like cracking embers.
"The Heavenly Spear dares to stand equal with centuries of imperial heritage. Shall we let a boy and his halls rewrite our world?"
Tang Wushen leaned forward.
"His vision unites the fractured border, yes. But his unity comes at the cost of tradition. We are made irrelevant."
Shi Jainhong's voice was colder.
"He builds with speed, but speed is weakness. He has no roots."
"You speak of restoration," Long Aotian growled, eyes narrowed at Shi Jianhong, the patriarch of the Crystal Clan. "But what you truly desire is dominion. Don't think I haven't noticed your agents probing the eastern rivers, nor your quiet buildup in the Jiyue mines."
Shi Jianhong sat with the composed smile of a man who had walked through centuries of silence. "Peace requires leverage, Lord Long. The rivers have always touched upon contested territory. Are we now denying old boundaries because your nephew—a boy—has ruffled the status quo?"
Feng Yitian interjected before Long Aotian could retort. "Enough. This is precisely why we meet in secret. The boy has brought chaos. Our lines of trade, our ancestral claims, our control over the border cultivators—all of it is cracking. The Alliance has become a beast. We must chain it."
"And yet you refused to chain your own bloodline," muttered Tang Wushen, folding his arms. His tone dripped with veiled accusation. "Who spread fire in Yunlin Valley last winter? Was it not the Crimson Flame patrols looking to incite skirmishes with Hall of Valor settlements?"
"You dare accuse me—"
"I dare observe, Patriarch Feng."
Jin Zeyan chuckled lowly, the sound like gold coins scraping in an empty chest. "And what of profit? We speak of land, honor, and bloodlines… but not silver. Not coin. Su Mengtian has disrupted the mercantile web. Every town that joins his Hall of Echoes no longer trades through our sanctioned ports. My caravans are bleeding."
"Then perhaps you should have diversified," Peng Zhenyu muttered. "I warned you not to tie your fate to the Eastern silk routes alone."
It was Dongfang Zihan, the crown prince, who sealed the tone of the meeting.
"Silence," he said. "Enough quarreling. If we are to sign the Imperial Restoration Compact, we do so in unity. Not fractured like broken jade."
Even the warring glances calmed.
"The Empire needs restoration, not rebellion. We form a Compact to ensure control—ours. The Radiant Lineage shall not bow to a rising warlord."
Dongfang Leicheng stepped forward, placing the silver-gilded scroll on the central stone table. Eight marks would bind the agreement.
With that, the scroll was unfurled: The Imperial Restoration Compact. Eight seals awaited.
Seven were pressed.
Only Bai Qingtian stood still.
He looked around at the gathered lords, then to the scroll. The quill floated near him, its tip glinting with golden ink. His eyes narrowed.
"The Bai family shall not sign."
Feng Yitian rose. "You would side with him?"
"I side with what must be," Qingtian answered. "The old ways failed the empire. We do not fear change. We embrace what the world becomes."
Shi Zhenhai spat. "Your daughter has bewitched you."
"No," Qingtian said, turning. "She merely reminded me of our duty."
Without another word, the Patriarch of the Bai family turned and left, his refusal like thunder in the silence.
Shi Jianhong said, "I suggest we act fast."
"We do not act rashly," the Crown Prince intoned. "We infiltrate. We fracture them from within. If Su Mengtian builds halls, then we must give rise to shadows beneath their pillars."
Elsewhere, under far gentler skies, Yueying sat with Mengtian beneath a flowering starlight cherry tree in the heart of Tianzhen City. The petals glowed like cold flames, drifting around them as the sun began to set.
"They will move soon," Yueying whispered, her voice barely audible over the wind.
Mengtian looked to the east.
"They already have."
"My father sent word. The Compact has formed. All but us."
"That means I owe him a debt," Mengtian murmured.
She smiled faintly.
"You owe him nothing. You've already made him proud."
They sat in silence for a while.
"I worry for you," she said. "This will not be clean. They'll paint you as the villain."
Mengtian's eyes darkened.
"Let them paint what they will. I am not here to be loved. I am here to win."
"My family will be offered a seat," she said at last, voice soft but cutting.
Mengtian nodded. "I suspected as much. Your father is not a man they can ignore."
She turned to face him. "They will ask The Bai family to join the Compact."
He said nothing.
"You don't ask me to refuse."
Still, he was silent.
"Why?"
"Because," he said at last, looking her square in the eyes, "I would rather lose this war than demand your loyalty. If you choose to stand with me, I want it to be because your heart knows what must be done. Not because I asked."
Her eyes shimmered. "Do you think I'm weak? That I doubt?"
"No," he said. "I think you're the strongest of us all. But strength doesn't mean you are without pain."
In that silence, a choice bloomed.
At the northern glacier stronghold of the Celestial Snow Pavilion, Bai Qingtian stood before his family elders. Bai Xuening, the Grand Elder, held the scroll.
"They offer us prestige," he said, voice brittle like aged ice. "A permanent seat in the Compact. Control of the northern lakes. And immunity for the Bai bloodline in the event of imperial reorganization."
Bai Feng remained still. Bai Qinglan frowned.
"Father," Bai Qingtian said firmly. "Do not mistake survival for honor. Yueying… has already made her decision. She walks with Mengtian. And we—we are not creatures of cowardice."
Bai Xuening gazed at him long. Then nodded. Slowly. Deliberately. "Then let the snow stand beside the storm."
Lightning danced in his irises.
Su Mengtian stood at the war-table within the Skyward Citadel, now the central node of the Heavenly Spear Alliance. Hallmasters flanked him.
"They've moved," Ji Yeyan murmured, shadow veil drifting over his shoulder. "A courier tried to poison one of our supply channels at Frostveil. Interrogation confirmed. Orders came from the Peng family."
"A test strike," said Rao Lin. "They're measuring our threshold."
Baojin leaned forward. "Then let them measure a blade."
Su Mengtian closed his eyes.
"No," he said. "We respond not with blade. But with truth."
He gestured to Xuan Le. "Map the cities that depend on commerce from Jin's faction. Prepare to intercept their routes with alternative trade lines. Through the Hall of Echoes."
To Yue Mei: "Begin illusions. Make the border posts appear abandoned. Let them grow bold."
To Lan Qiu: "Scatter storm flares over the southern sea. Obscure movement to and from Kun Island."
To Ji Yeyan again: "Send whispers to the royal court. Subtly. Make them question why the Compact hides in secret."
He looked to them all.
"We will not strike. Not yet. But the dawn always begins in silence."
Hanyuan was a quiet frontier trading town near Kun Island's eastern strait. Or it had been, until the false-flag attack arrived.
The night before, imperial scouts had withdrawn. The townspeople had seen soldiers in mismatched armor, bearing false banners—the Heavenly Spear Alliance's sigil, crudely painted.
They came at dawn. Fires lit the streets. Civilians fled. The defenders were overwhelmed.
Then came the cries:
"Mengtian has turned tyrant!"
"He strikes at the Empire's borders!"
But some among the dying knew it was wrong. The accents. The weapons. Too polished, too imperial.
As the smoke rose over charred earth and bodies, silence fell.
And into that silence, a man walked.
Lightning crackled behind him in wreaths of violet and gold. Each step he took struck the ash and stone with divine resonance. His cloak billowed, dry against the rainless sky.
Thunder crackled. The ground was scorched, yet the air stilled around him. Ash floated like snow.
Su Mengtian's lightning aura arced silently across the dead, illuminating every face, every child, every elder lost in the flames.
The impostors were gone. Their traces vanished. The war had begun in whispers and now opened in fire.
He looked around—at the still-burning houses, the corpses of old men and boys who had tried to defend their kin, the ruined town that bore his name falsely.
The sky growled.
His Hallmasters stood behind him. Silent. Waiting.
He knelt beside a burned banner—their own. Stolen.
And then he rose.
"They want a war of shadows," he whispered.
The wind stopped.
The clouds paused.
Lightning wreathed him like a crown.
And his voice rang like thunder:
"Then I shall show them the dawn."
The aftermath of the false-flag attack on Hanyuan Town near Kun Island rippled through the empire like a thunderclap.
The once-sleepy frontier town had become a crater of smoke and blood. Bodies still smoldered where searing flames—clearly not of the Heavenly Spear Alliance's tactics—had razed everything.
But perception was everything. And perception had been manipulated.
News of the massacre spread fast. A young town magistrate, swayed by coin and fear, publicly decried Su Mengtian's name on imperial broadcaster crystals.
"The Heavenly Spear Alliance has betrayed the people," he cried in front of mourners. "They have violated the imperial trust. Who shall stop them now?"
While the Great Clans' scheme was unfolding, Bai Yueying got a letter from her family to return to the Celestial Snow pavilion immediately.
At Crimson Sky Capital - Imperial Court,
Inside the Grand Tribunal Hall, tensions snapped like drawn bowstrings. Ministers barked over one another. Scrolls of fabricated reports were passed like poisonous wine. Prime Minister Xie Zhongwen remained silent, observing everything. General Zhao Fenglei slammed his gauntlet on the obsidian table.
"If we do not respond to the Heavenly Spear Alliance's aggression, we allow chaos to reign!"
Marshal Duan Zhengxiong narrowed his eyes. "And if we do respond without certainty, we might be puppets dancing on someone else's string."
Qu Yuheng, the enigmatic diviner, finally spoke. His voice was airy, but heavy with implication. "The heavens remain silent on Kun Island's storm. But I feel the hands of old families… very old ones."
A heavy silence followed. Emperor Dongfang Tianyi entered the chamber then, regal and grim, with Dongfang Leicheng shadowing him.
"Let the truth surface. But if Mengtian is truly behind this, he shall face imperial judgment. Until then… no movement without my word."
The command was absolute. The empire would wait—but only just.
At Tianzhen City — State of Records - Grand Council Hall,
The Council Hall was dim, lit by soulfire lanterns and the glow of crystalline projectors embedded in the floor. At the center, a round obsidian table bore living maps etched in arcane energy—shifting overlays of clan influence, resource lines, and recent unrest along Kun Island's periphery.
Su Mengtian stood at the head, arms crossed, his expression unreadable as lightning flared across the storm-laden horizon beyond the vaulted windows.
Kai Chan of the Hall of Echoes broke the silence, voice low. "The great clans were searching for a fuse. This false-flag attack gave them fire."
Inara of Ironblood clenched her fists, knuckles white. "Then we draw them into terrain they can't survive. Mountains. Chasms. They'll regret every step."
Baojin of Aegis disagreed, his tone measured. "No. To strike now is to validate their accusations. We must be patient—let their lies rot under scrutiny."
Ji Yeyan of Shadows leaned forward from the far end, face half-veiled. "Then we do what we do best. Undermine their truths. Bleed their credibility, not their soldiers. Not yet."
Mengtian's gaze was steady as he turned to Xuan Le of Astral Command, whose robe shimmered like starlight. "Three-phase misinformation campaign. Leak proof of the Compact's orchestration to rogue archivists. Bribe or blackmail a Tang courier to 'accidentally' deliver exposed letters. And spread unrest in the Peng trade routes with whispers and ledgers that implicate internal betrayal."
Xuan Le's brow furrowed. "And what of the military?"
"No battalions," Mengtian said firmly. "Mobilize information. Silence. Let every whisper serve us."
Lightning cracked again—this time closer—throwing his silhouette in long shadows across the marble floor.
At Celestial Snow Pavilion – Yueying's Garden,
Yueying sat in the pale light of the moon, watching lotus petals drift across her private pond. Her fingers trembled slightly.
Her father's decision was resolute: the Bai would not join the Compact. But the cost was now hers to carry.
"Yueying."
She turned. Bai Feng, her brother, stood in silence behind her.
"You chose him."
"I chose the future," she said, softly. "A different one than theirs."
He stepped forward, kneeling beside her.
"Then be prepared to stand at his side. Because war is coming, and not everyone we love will live through it."
Yueying's fingers closed around the pearl hairpin Mengtian had given her in Tianzhen. A storm danced within her heart—love, dread, and resolve.
At a Hidden Fortress – Nightfall Command Cell,
A secret chamber deep within the mountains lit with sigils as Ji Yeyan's agents received their orders. Messages were sent via encrypted spirit flames—each directed to sow dissent in the Compact's alliance. Falsified accounts of clan collusion began appearing in scholarly journals. Mercenary captains found themselves interrogated by Alliance sympathizers.
The narrative shifted subtly.
Meanwhile, Mengtian's personal letter to the Imperial Court arrived in Emperor Tianyi's hands.
"We do not seek war. But we do not kneel before liars. If proof is required, we shall deliver it not in words—but in exposure."
At Hanyuan Town - Three Days Later,
The town of Hanyuan had become a shrine of ruin. What once was life now smoldered in stillness.
Su Mengtian walked through the ash and bone, untouched by the soot.
Lightning streaked the sky behind him, coiling like serpents. The silence bowed before his steps.
Su Mengtian knelt by the body of a fallen child and placed a crystal flower in her hands.
Behind him, the skies churned.
And then, to no one in particular, to the world itself, he said:
"By starfire and shadow, I swear—this is not vengeance, but reckoning. For every person crushed beneath gilded boots, for every voice drowned in silence, I rise. The wind carries their prayers; the earth bears their pain. Let them tremble—for I am the storm their cruelty has sown."